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The God Standard

This is my first post of the year. There was a long list of things I wanted to start off with: about my new goals as a Christian, about all the things I did wrong last year that I want to rectify for 2013; a prophecy post based on Daniel and Revelation and how the 21st December apocalypse scare was a bunch of hodge-podge.

And then something developed in the last weeks of November, leading to an event on the 2nd of December that has changed many things in my life, but in a good way: I’ve embarked upon a relationship with someone who has been in my life for five years. This means I can no longer read my posts of months ago, where I chastised the men in my church for leading me on, mainly because it reminds me of a bitterness I didn’t realise I had. I still stand by my arguments: trifling with a woman’s heart is ungodly, and a man of God should let his yeas be yeas and his nays be nays. However, the motive behind the writing of those posts came from a place of misguidance. I’ll say it plainly:

the person I am with now is someone I’ve cared about for a very long time. And even though what I had felt for him had abated somewhat when a ‘new man’ came onto the scene, I believe my underlying feelings for him manifested themselves to others, which may be a contributing factor of as to why I found my myself in those ‘false start’ relationships.

Being with my ‘someone’, has made me think about the list I had made about my ‘dream man’ years and years ago. When I was much younger, the list was very superficial:

Must be Six Foot somethingMust have dark, rich skinMust have locs, so we can have loc babies….…And something about loving God.

As I began to give my desires to God and think seriously about it, the list changed to things that were practical and had a focus for spiritual things:

Must have the same view of God as I doMust be someone who is trying to be a better personMust be a readerMust be intellectual and intelligentMust appreciate my writingMust respect me as a woman…Must be someone I would have no problem submitting to, in the way God intended.

Fortunately, a sister has started up a series of Dating, Courtship and Marriage Bible studies at my church and last week a couple from our congregation, married for 19 years, spoke about how God had put them together. The husband said that he had made a list of things he wanted and knew God would have wanted for him, and he found all these things in his wife. He asked God to help him make a choice.

It gave me hope for my relationship, as I was never a person who believed in the ‘God has one person for me’ (there are 7 billion people in the world. How will you possibly start searching for that predestined one?), and this husband and I had approached things in a similar way.

The last item on my personal list was a very recent addition (probably only a few months). It dawned on me just how important that factor is, because even if he’s intelligent, or he reads, doesn’t mean he is a good man, a man who respects a woman and understands what’s required of him as a man in a relationship. I began to read Ephesians 5: 22 in a whole new light. Literally, it only dawned on me what God is actually saying to women here:

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

Even in this verse, though directed at the women, has a rebuke for men all over it. What Paul is saying here is ‘women, God has such a high standard for you of as to what husband you should choose, He’s literally reserving a man that is only like Christ to be your husbands. Don’t settle for anything less’.

This was huge for me to see. The fact that Paul immediately says that men have to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave His life for it (verses 25 onwards), there is no mistaking just what kind of men women are supposed to marry. The fact that God wants you to have a marriage that immediately reflects the relationship between Christ and the church, says a lot about the standard of man that God has reserved for his daughters. Now I know why we are described as ‘far above rubies’ (Proverbs 31:10).

This was just the kind of revelation that I needed for the new year.

Also, the person I’m with is someone I have complete trust in to respect me. I’m always amazed at his reaction to Ephesians 5: awe and caution and self-reflection. He always asks himself ‘how can I be that man’? when he reads it, rather than ‘look, you’re gonna have to submit to me, woman!’

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2 thoughts on “The God Standard”

I was just talking about this with someone the other day, Eph 5 really does blow my mind. Not in that it’s unobtainable or unrealistic, but in that the level of maturity that is demanded is so high and there are people, our age, actively wanting to have those qualities and to assume those roles. The whole submitting thing was a big thing to me before, but I’ve come to realise that essentially, being prepared to submit to your husband is having faith in God that He will provide you with someone that will love you as Christ loved the church (provided you accept his guidance in the matter) and be willing to give himself for you. That’s a big deal, to know that the man you marry will die for you. In fact, knowing that, I want to submit to (the future) him.

Is just sooo deep, and such a shame that it’s not taught like that in church. I think that if we focused more on just how big and profound and wonderful it is, then these man vs woman debates would be a rare occurrence. But I suppose that’s what Esther is for 😉